System Brings Plays To Hard-of-hearing

A nearly deaf Ruth Fader has only one way to tell if the actors scurrying around the Kings Point stage are performing well.

She glances at her husband.

If he`s smiling, the play is good. If he`s frowning, it isn`t.

``It`s the longest two hours,`` Fader of Delray Beach said. ``I squirm. I look around. I watch the facial expressions. I`m frustrated, but I enjoy being part of an audience. We (hard-of-hearing people) don`t want to lock ourselves up indoors.``

Soon, Fader won`t have to consider staying indoors.

By the middle of March, Kings Point officials plan to install in the clubhouse auditorium a $784 Williams Sound transistor that will transmit performers` voices just like an FM radio station, said clubhouse director Gary Stein.

Hard-of-hearing residents who buy a $60 receiver will be able to hear performers from any seat in the west Delray Beach auditorium. The radio-like receivers, which are about the size of a calculator and battery-operated, snap onto a belt and have an earphone attached.

The same system will help people hear in Temple Beth El, Boca Raton, starting next month, said Bud Waters, general manager of American Amplifier and Television Corp. in Pompano Beach.

``The system is like having a direct line to the sound source,`` said Paul Ingebrigtsen, Williams Sound marketing manager in Eden Prairie, Minn. ``It bypasses background noises that would otherwise jumble up`` performers` words, he said.

Fader is thrilled about last week`s news of the installation.

She and some of the other 15,000 residents in this community of mostly retired residents had been asking officials for the system for about a year, she said.

``I was getting so frustrated,`` said Fader, president of the Kings Point chapter of Self Help for the Hard of Hearing.

Officials had been considering a system since March 1983, said Stein. When Stein was promoted to clubhouse director this month, he decided to answer the wishes of several hundred callers and letter-writers.

Now, residents have to wait until workers finish $300,000 in auditorium renovations before the system can be put in, Stein said.

Jack Kiprais, 71, is relieved about the installation. He can hear fine, he said, but his wife, Helen, can`t.

``I`ll tell you the truth, I don`t like to go to a show or a movie with her because when I look at her, I see she`s upset and crying,`` Kiprais said. ``I don`t like to see her upset.``